Organizational Culture and Employee Motivation
Title description: Organizational culture and employee motivation
Word count: 3139
Keywords: Workplace performance management, Skills gap, Team performance, Multiculturism, Work-life balance
Excerpts:
The culture of any organization and employee satisfaction is reflective of its leadership. In fact the culture formation processes is mainly associated with its founder.
The ideal leader would attribute due recognition and importance to the perspectives put forth by his subordinates. Such good leaders gradually transform the employees who have a lesser role and considered less important to a higher level.
One of the several factors that motivate a team is a clear purpose or mission. However for long-term motivation, it is important that this purpose or mission is aligned to individual personal needs. Arising up to a challenge also motivates a team.
Internet Based Project Management
Title description: Internet based project management
Word count: 1727
Keywords: Collaborative applications, Speed of data transfer, Content management, Cultural barriers, Basecamp, Zoho Projects
Excerpts:
Among the main factors responsible for this revolutionary changes of businesses in general and project management in particular is the advent of the Internet.
The competitiveness and profitability of an organization is reflected from, how effectively it can manage its project aspects and resources, control costs and optimize scheduling. Therefore the entire project team requires up to date project information.
The Internet based project management architecture facilitates an organization to keep adding projects to its portfolio without reducing the effectiveness of the management system. The project tools of the managers are scaled corresponding to the nature and scope of the project while also corresponding to the skills and needs of the project manager.
Saudi Arabia Monetary Agency (SAMA)
Title description: Saudi Arabia Monetary Agency (SAMA)
Word count: 2591
Keywords: Basel Committee, Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Moneychangers, Shariah compliant cards, Money laundering, Terrorist funding
Excerpts:
The growing monetary base of SAMA is evident from the fact that at the end of 2005, it had only 25,445 million riyals in deposits and 7201 million riyal as cash in vaults. This can be compared to 2009 Q4 values of 10,856 million and 149,262 millions respectively.
Based on the Basel Principles, SAMA had developed a Compliance Manual for banks to improve their effectiveness of compliance. It should be noted here that the Tenth Principle is directed at outsourcing of the compliance jobs to others.
A major requirement for all consumer credit agreements, obligation undertaking, guarantee arrangements and such other relevant documentation is that they need to be in Arabic. If requested by the customers, they should be provided with an English version.
Introduction of E-banking in Saudi
Title description: Al Rajhi Bank as a case study
Word count: 3998
Keywords: Business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce, Business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce, Business-to-government (B2G) e-commerce, Technology Acceptance Model (TAM)
Excerpts:
The Saudi banking sector underwent major changes in 1997 when its United Saudi Commercial Bank and the Saudi Cairo Bank merged to form the United Saudi Bank. With United Saudi Bank recovering from its loses and restructuring, Samba merged with it in 1999.
On the 6th August of 2005, it linked its systems with SADAD to offer services across all bank channels throughout the Kingdom, through phone and internet banking. The SADAD payment system streamlines bill payment systems throughout the Kingdom.
Of the 12 internet banks reviewed, only two banks charged their customers, others provided it for free. Natwest charged 30 pounds as a onetime fee while NPBS charged 2.99 pounds per month. It should be noted here that the Bank of Scotland started to operate its online banking only between fixed timings.
Training and Development Practices
Title description: Training and development practices
Word count: 3605
Keywords: Training initiatives, Learning, Automated facility, Internal validation, Design, Training department
Excerpts:
When training is managed properly, the required changes or outcomes are successfully realized. However generalized training using inappropriate material, video presentations and irrelevant case studies are more directed towards the self interest of the trainer rather than the organization.
Similarly in management training too, the earlier experience and performance of the managers, their strengths and weaknesses are looked into, while planning their training. Past experiences and its associated success and failures, would help in predicting future behavior with and without training.
The training can be said to be efficient and effective when it has achieved its objectives. The validity of the training is determined by ascertaining whether the training has been able to solve problems associated with output, service and outflow.
Whistleblowing
Title description: Law (US) and ethics of whistleblowing
Word count: 2142
Keywords: Governmental secrecy, Public welfare, Classified, Detrimental to the society, Internal whistleblowing protocol
Excerpts:
Whistleblowing may be traced back to over a century when it didn’t have anything to do with the corporate world. The False Claim Act was established in 1863 by Abraham Lincoln to identify fake gunpowder sales during the Civil War, when the Union was purchasing it.
The issue involves morality and ethics and reconsiders the values of trust, obligations to the employer and duties to the society. The employee has to weigh the expectations of loyalty and confidentiality by the employer against the expectations of the public to expose employer wrong doings.
Law and economic professor at University of Missouri Kansas, William Black opines that whistleblowers in the public sector are often confronted with a feeling that their disclosure might be interpreted as a crime. A potential whistleblower should therefore consider if the information to be exposed is a classified or a protected one.
Team Performance in Workplace
Title description: A brief analysis of team working
Word count: 3432
Keywords: Skills gap, Performance expectations, Team building, Strategic resource, Employer-employee relationship
Excerpts:
The leadership needs to clearly communicate its expectations for team performance and ensure that the team understands its purpose. A lack of clear performance expectations would result in unclear directions, which affects the team member’s sense of participation.
The commitment of the members is more valuable and effective if their participation is voluntary. When participation is mandatory, it is possible to draw commitment by empowering them to set their course of working and establish goals.
Thus an appropriate behavior for an accounting team is different from that required of a design team. The behaviors of team also require changing according to its stage of working. For instance the design team need to change its behavior once the design stage is completed and actual detailing starts.
Conflict Resolution and Negotiation Practices
Title description: A brief look into theory and practice
Word count: 2271
Keywords: Traditional theory, Contemporary theory, Unifying framework, Multidisciplinary, Mutilevel
Excerpts:
Two important theories of conflict management are the traditional theory and the contemporary theory (Kirchoff and Adams, 1982). While the traditional theory assumes that conflicts are caused by trouble makers and require to be doused, the contemporary theory acknowledges that conflicts among human beings are unavoidable.
The field of conflict resolution may in many ways be described as being fractured, lacking an integrating and unifying framework of the many relevant theories. This is despite the decades of research, with the research findings being contradictory, more emphasized on negative outcomes and directed at a research-practice gap.
It was in the 1970s that Kenneth Thomas and Ralph Kilmann proposed their five styles of handling conflict. While recommending that different styles might be used at different situations, they emphasized that people generally have a preferred style. These postulations went on to become the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument.
Global Corporations as Political Actors
Title description: A brief analysis on the transforming role of corporations
Word count: 2179
Keywords: Transnational corporations, Conventional economic theory, Information strategy, Financial incentive strategy, Constituency building strategy
Excerpts:
These corporations are therefore expected to conduct ethically and participate in fair global governance and perform roles that are expected of the governments. They are expected to improve the politico-legal order by contributing to sustainable harmony, cleansing of bribery and corruption and improving human rights. Thus these corporations are required to transform to political actors.
The rules and regulations binding corporations are formed and enforced by the state. Corporations assuming a political role has resulted in a shift in the governance model form a state centered governing to a multi lateral, nongovernmental, transnational governance, calling upon corporations to accept social responsibility.
The conventional economic theory that businesses have no social role is based on the philosophy that politics and economics are two distinct domains, with the state setting up rules which the businesses would follow. However given the fading of the boundary between economy and politics, the theory is losing grounds.
World Trade Organization (WTO)
Title description: Should the scope of WTO be expanded?
Word count: 6587
Keywords: Special and differential (S&D) treatment, Environmental regulations, Multilateral trading system, Detrimental effect, Multilateral trading system
Excerpts:
Without effective laws, the primary goal of the WTO to see the developing and least developed nations progress through international trade cannot be realized. The WTO maintained that international trade should not necessarily be directed along the principles of equality, should have appropriate laws to back this principle.
Trade is also intricately associated with non-trade factors like environment, health, education for any nation. Therefore, WTO policies and decisions with regard to trade also take into account the impact it could have on other sectors of affected nations.
There needs to be a minimum period, say about 6 months, between notice of the measures and its actual implementation. This minimum period will enable exporters to modify their products and make them compatible with the new safeguards. Countries implementing such measures should also be obliged to show why these measures are necessary in the first place.
The growing significance and influence of the developing countries has even been considered by many as a threat to environmental conservation. Certain sceptics had opined that alternative international bodies require to be established to cater to the needs of the evolving scenario, as the expectations are different from what the WTO can deliver.
Role of Leader’s Effective Communication in Clinical Practice
Title description: Leader’s role in developing staff and transforming an organization
Word count: 3200
Keywords: Computer mediated communication, Media richness theory, Cognitive-behavior therapy, Law and ethics, Communication methodologies
Excerpts:
Recent studies have explored the communication behaviours of staff and the impact of this within the hospital and clinical frameworks. Several of these studies pointed out that the communication methodologies adopted by the employees were inefficient.
But the theories of poststructuralists like Michael Foucault on the importance of power and knowledge directly contest the observations of Habermas. Foucault and other poststructuralists propose that knowledge associated with power, ultimately becomes the truth based on authority and power to be seen as being true.
However certain other studies have shown that deployment of technology in communication like computer mediated communication with its various facets like emails, instant messaging and video transfer are actually detrimental, particularly in clinical practice.
Leader Selection
Title description: Selecting a new president
Word count: 1738
Keywords: Social boldness, Team-orientation, Interpersonal skills, Inspirational leader, Community building. Role model
Excerpts:
It is also important for the leaders to make reasonable effort towards restructuring their relationship with out-group team members Leaders must understand that out-group members have a feeling that the psychological contract had been broken.
While highlighting the impact of the conflict on work and productivity, the president needs to be cautious while addressing issues associated with any particular behavior, and ensure it is not against personalities.
Leaders need to decide if a joint meeting of the conflicting parties is needed at the onset or individual meetings are required first. The leader as far as possible must be a mediator and not a judge, and must facilitate employees to resolve their conflict amongst themselves if possible.
Tea Consumption and re-export in the UAE
Title description: A brief review
Word count: 2770
Keywords: Dubai Tea Trading Center (DTCC), Jabel Ali Free Zone, Rooibos tea, Dubai Multi-Commodities Centre (DMCC), Herbal tea, Medicinal tea
Excerpts:
The UAE which hosted the 2012 International Coffee and Tea Festival has the highest average consumption of beverages in the area. The per capita consumption in the UAE is about 3.5 kg a year2 (UAE Interact, 2012). UAE nationals consume almost twice of coffee compared to any other GCC country.
Also the availability of blended tea combining several types of premium teas has made tea drinking more appealing in the UAE. The price of tea had also increased by over 50% in the UAE in the last two years.
Rooibos tea as it is called slows down cancer while also reducing the risk of heart diseases. A national drink of South Africa, it was very popular among the South African emigrants in the UAE given its special blend of antioxidants that boosts the body’s defensive systems
On Leadership – John W Gardiner
Title description: A brief personal perspective
Word count: 1324
Keywords: Goal setting, Motivating, Optimum environment, Authoritative decisions, Group cohesiveness, Leader-follower relationship
Excerpts:
Bringing out several unique qualities of leadership, the book also highlights another little known fact that leaders could suffer from the mistakes of their predecessors and likewise make mistakes to be resolved by their successors.
Gardiner also points out that many of the changes leaders strive to establish might take considerable time to be implemented. He mentions that leaders could even see just little results despite heroic efforts in their lifetime, given the long public debates and slow shift in attitudes.
Some leaders associate goals to solutions for existing problems, while others try to consolidate divided groups by establishing overarching goals, seeking consolidation and focus of energies.
Should Public Servants Have the Right to Strike?
Title description: Should public servants have the right to strike?
Word count: 1578
Keywords: Minimum standards, Employment benefits, Public servants, Fundamental human right, Essential and emergency services
Excerpts:
When essential services are affected, the public have no feasible alternative at hand, and strikers easily cause huge difficulty and costs to people. It needs to be noted here that while the European Convention of Human Rights protects the right to strike, it also restricts this right when the public safety and health is affected.
People unconcerned of the public are incapable of serving them. It is unethical for them to continue in service when they are open to strikes and see strikes as a way of resolution and benefit.
Despite all these and also having several ways to address their concerns, it is unfortunate that public sector staff resort to strike. This is because they see strikes as an opportunity to raise the bar of their employment benefits.
Corporations
Title description: A brief look into the role and functioning of corporations
Word count: 1415
Keywords: Unprecedented pace, Human rights violation, International agreements, Commercial bribery, National Rifle Association of America (NRA)
Excerpts:
Whenever a nation takes steps to improve their worker’s conditions, which obviously mean more costs to companies, the companies pack up. They hunt for places with cheap labor and lesser restrictions. Improving the working conditions of its labor force is not in the interests of the corporations.
Although being associated with healthcare, the pharmaceutical industry lack a humane perspective which is evident when they advocated to the U.S government to impose sanctions on the South African companies producing cheaper and more generic AIDS drugs.
In 2000, Lawrence Summers, who was then the US treasury secretary pointed out that although corporate profits had increased by 20%, the tax revenue fell by 2%. The Economist reported in March 1999 that the News Corporation and its subsidiaries had paid an effective tax rate of about 6% for the four years ended June 30, 1998, while Disney had paid 31% for the same period.
Roles and Gender in Public Relations
Title description: A brief study on women in public relations
Word count: 3169
Keywords: Pattern of socialization, Feminine zones, Gender-based inequities, Economic and commercial trends, Gender trend analysis, Corporate ladder, Aggressive experience, Networking opportunities
Excerpts:
Public relations personnel don’t have any data to talk of their contribution to the organization, thereby rendering their services as not being quantifiable. People from other disciplines like sales and manufacturing have relevant data to put forth their positions and strategy.
Women’s role in public relations is indeed a topic of big debate with worthy outcomes. The understanding of this role and predicting a future trend is rendered complex due to their social standings, attitude and the nature of positions this field has to offer.
However from lessons learnt earlier, once women are successful in barging into managerial roles, these roles would begin to be identified as feminine. When this starts, men would withdraw from their posts, allowing it to be engulfed by women.
Business Development and Customer Service
Title description: Importance of customer experience and satisfaction
Word count: 706
Keywords: Customer retention and loyalty, Unloyal and disassociate, Emotional reactions, Customer retention, Genuine relationships
Excerpts:
Statistics show that by just increasing customer retention by just 5%, profitability can be raised to 95%. Acquiring a new customer is at least 5 times expensive, compared to retaining one.
The main advantage of good and superior customer relationships is not that they would give more business directly, but that it offers chances to bring in newer opportunities in the form of customer advocates. No databases or discounts can substitute genuine relationships.
It is very important for the customers to believe that the company’s prices, features, quality and other factors are of superior value, for them to become promoters.
Customer Loyalty and Satisfaction
Title description: A brief review of customer loyalty and satisfaction
Word count: 1556
Keywords: Customer advocates, Superior customer relationships, Contact worker, Customer’s perception, First impressions
Excerpts:
Research has shown that customers are more likely to be satisfied when they experience a physical service than a remote service, due to the level of interactivity and human contact. Therefore satisfaction by physical encounter can have a positive effect on the key drivers of customer loyalty.
The loyalty of a customer to an organization may be interpreted as an overall satisfaction in transacting business with the organization, an intention to create a relationship with the organization, the intention to be a repeat buyer and recommend to others and be unwilling to switch to a competitor.
Advocacy helps in increasing market share and higher levels of retention. Sometimes we see customers even tattooing a company’s logo like Harley Davidson, on their body, associating the brand name to their ownership. Advocacy at a very high level like this is rare and beyond the reach of most consumer companies.
Globalization
Title description: An analysis of globalization and its impact
Word count: 2236
Keywords: Modernization and electronic revolution, American and European lifestyles, Best-educated generation, Mergers and acquisitions, Trade and commerce, Stakes and risks
Excerpts:
Foreign investments create jobs in cities, which make rural workers to move to cities. In this too, the labor intensive agricultural sector is falling due to the lure of services and manufacturing sectors. With everyone trying to get into these sectors which are not employment intensive, the rate of unemployment rises.
While the emerging economies and developing countries tend to converge with the developed countries, there is a growing divergence between the least developed countries and the rest. The emerging economies benefit from the developments in education, production and technologies while there are unprecedented low levels of malnourishment, poor education and healthcare due to the deepening gap in the living standards between people and between countries.
The complex, global economic situation is evident in the recent downturn. A decline in the US housing mortgage sector has led to a global recession, cutting jobs and salaries all around the world. The sentiments and speculation which drive these markets are purely based on assumptions and predictions on developing situations.
The Future of Public Administration
Title description: A brief overview of economy, budgeting and performance
Word count: 4502
Keywords: Desired measurable changes, Public confidence, Performance measurements, Decentralized service delivery, Contingent liability, Demographic information, Digital governance, Transparency
Excerpts:
The government performance management is expected to transform with time because the objectives and measurements would change based on the developments in the country’s macro-economic conditions.
However in the public sector, individuals do not stand to gain financially as a result of successful innovation. As the public sector has traditionally been a monopoly provider of several goods and services, people in the public sector have had little motivation or incentive to engage or invest in innovation.
Integration of services makes efficient use of public funds due to synergies achieved. In an increasing number of countries, together with the range of services offered, there is an increased effort to coordinate and customize it to fit the needs of its users.
The United Nations describes best practices as those, which have an evaluable and tangible effect in improving the quality of life of the people. The best practices result from effective partnerships between the sectors of public, private and civil society.
